Emily in the Castle of Udolpho
In yesterday’s post I discussed anxious parents and proposed Northanger Abbey as a sane approach to teenage reading (and movie watching and internet using). I elaborate here.
I start first with the reading material in question. Heroine Catherine Moreland and her best friend Isabella Thorpe are enthralled with the novels of [...]
“Before,” by William Hogarth (1736)
What can happen to your daughters if they read novels? According to William Hogarth, something like the above.
Check out the lower left hand corner where a side table is falling over. The drawer has been left casually but deliberately open so that one can see the book that is proudly displayed [...]
Samuel Johnson
If we need proof that adolescence has always been a difficult age, we can look at those 18th century moralists that were panicked about young people reading novels.
Of course if you’re young (to build off of a comment that Barbara makes in response to Friday’s post), part of the fun of reading novels is [...]
